Chapter 22 Poor Law and Legal Knowledge Class
Professor Wayne was obviously worried today, otherwise he would not have said such words just now and asked me to cooperate with him.
He vaguely guessed some of Professor Wayne's thoughts from this behavior.
The workhouse is nominally a charity that takes in and helps the poor.
After the introduction of the "George III Poor Law", workhouses were built in various places under the watchful eyes of the gods.
In addition to each kingdom itself, a workhouse will be built near each church of the seven major orthodox churches to help the poor and promote God's love.
This starting point is of course good and worthy of recognition, but the greed of human hearts will make them want to get involved in charity organizations such as workhouses.
When charity becomes a weapon against the poor, it will be the greatest irony.
Hasta believes in the kindness of people and also believes in the ugliness of people.
From what he has seen so far and from some of Professor Wayne's words, he can foresee that there is definitely something wrong with this workhouse.
Professor Wayne insisted on eating in the same restaurant with the children, probably because he wanted to find out what was wrong with this workhouse.
No matter how well the other party does on the surface, as long as there is something wrong, it will inevitably leave traces.
And children often can't hide much.
Soon, an administrator came and said that the dining table on the first floor had been set up, and it was time for the children to have lunch.
"Our place is relatively simple, and some of the food is not so exquisite, which may not suit your appetite." Dean Daen's smile seemed to contain deep meaning.
Professor Wayne said calmly: "I was also born in a poor family, and every piece of food deserves respect."
"I'm just worried that I won't treat you well."
Dean Daen didn't say anything else, and led Hasta and the other two downstairs.
On the way, Hasta carefully observed the surroundings. It was noon now. There were many people coming out of the nearby houses to eat. Most of the children were between eight and twelve years old, and there were very few children aged fifteen or sixteen.
According to the Poor Law promulgated in the era of George III, anyone with healthy limbs and able to support themselves outside could not occupy the resources of the poorhouse all the time, and was not allowed to stay in the poorhouse overnight.
In order to show kindness and care for different groups of people, adults can come to the poorhouse to get food once a day, and children who do not live in the poorhouse can come to get food twice a day.
The so-called poor food is freely adjusted and arranged according to the economic conditions of the local poorhouse.
Most poorhouses can be allocated dairy products and bread. Poorhouses with better conditions can sometimes eat meat. Poorhouses with very good conditions can even eat meat freely, and occasionally beer can be provided.
Such living conditions are better than some working families.
Of course, poorhouses with such good conditions are still a minority.
Most poorhouses can only keep people barely full. Some poorhouses with poor conditions only have food such as soup, which is not enough to eat, and there may be only one meal a day, and they can only starve at other times.
The children there don’t have to wash the dishes after eating, because their bowls have been licked very clean.
After every table in the restaurant was packed with people and filled with food, an administrator shook the bell in his hand and shouted: "No talking, no playing, and no behavior that affects others' meals during meals!"
After reading the dining rules, the children began to eat quietly.
The main food for lunch today is enough white bread and a glass of milk, and a large bowl of slowly cooked sweet soup.
Although there is no meat to eat, compared with black bread, white bread as a staple food is already very good, and milk is also provided, which can meet the nutritional needs of children.
From the surface, at least from this lunch, there is not much to find.
"It's really a touching scene."
Lecturer Folen sighed. In his opinion, it is already great that a workhouse can feed poor children.
"Yes, I hope all children can grow up healthily." Professor Wayne was also quite touched.
Hasta did not comment on the scene in front of him, his eyes fell on the clothes on the children.
Their attire looked similar to that of the children in the dock area, with old grey-black coats, loose knee-length trousers, and some even wearing round-brimmed felt hats, which was a normal attire in the workhouse.
What puzzled Hasta was that their clothes were loose and messy, as if they were temporarily covered with clothes.
Another point was that these children were too calm.
Logically speaking, children of this age like to play and like new things the most. Even if they don't show interest in people like us, they will secretly take a few glances, right?
But since entering the gate, every child I met along the way has been very calm and well-behaved, not even talking loudly or playing around.
This is not normal.
"Let's have lunch too." Dean Daen greeted, and an administrator brought lunch.
Their lunch was similar to those of the children, except that there was a small piece of steak.
Fren hesitated and said, "Isn't this bad?"
The children all ate white bread, but he ate a delicious steak, which was a bit too much.
Dean Dahn looked embarrassed and said apologetically, "I didn't think it through."
As he said that, he told the administrators beside him to share all the steaks at noon with the children.
"Dean Dan, you are such a kind person." Follen was very satisfied with Dean Dan's approach.
Professor Wayne and Hasta just watched quietly without expressing their opinions.
Adhering to the eating rules of not talking and sleeping, Hasta and others did not speak out loud. After lunch, Dean Dan asked someone to take them around the poorhouse.
The entire poorhouse can be roughly divided into five areas: living area, residential area, teaching area, work area, and confinement area.
The living area refers to the area where you can move freely and play. After the children finish their classes and the adults finish their work, they can move freely in the living area for a certain period of time.
The residential area is divided into three parts. The first part is where children under the age of fourteen live. The second part is where the poorhouse administrators, cooks, workers and other personnel live. The third part is where people who are over fourteen years old and have a job in the poorhouse live.
The children live in the innermost part of the building on the left, the poorhouse administrators and others are in the middle, and the staff are on the outermost side.
There are iron gates between them. Except for the patrolling guards, ordinary people do not have keys to enter and exit.
Once someone is caught crossing the area, the punishment will be very severe, which is also to protect the children from harm as much as possible.
The teaching area is where children go to class to learn knowledge. The teaching here is very basic. If you can learn and use Rune, and addition and subtraction within 100, you can be considered graduated.
In addition, there is another kind of teaching, which is to learn some skills that can be used to find a job, such as sewing clothes, pasting matchboxes, washing clothes and other basic survival skills.
The work area is an area that can only be entered by people over the age of fourteen. The poorhouse will take some simple jobs from outside and let them work. First, they can exercise their work ability, second, they can earn some money to subsidize the finances of the poorhouse, and third, it is also to let these people have work to do and avoid causing other bigger troubles.
Take the poorhouse here as an example. Because it is built on the hillside, it is convenient for stone mining. Many workers' daily work is to chisel stones from the mountains. Smaller or weaker women are responsible for secondary processing of the transported stones.
The confinement area is used to detain people who have made mistakes, such as noisy children or workers who have fought.
This area is mainly located in the basement to avoid affecting normal life on the ground.
After walking around for a whole circle, an hour and a half had passed. Professor Wayne told the administrator that he would stay here tonight.
Dean Daen, who received the news, agreed with a smile and said that they could stay in the workhouse as long as they wanted.
At about three o'clock in the afternoon, Professor Wayne led Hasta and Lecturer Folen, as well as two administrators of the workhouse, to leave the workhouse and come to the dock area.
This time, the reason why Professor Wayne came to the dock area was not only to rest in the Sunrise Workhouse for one night, but also to popularize legal knowledge for the workers who were treated unfairly here during the day, and also to provide certain legal aid free of charge.
Professor Wayne told Hasta that during this period, the Kingdom of Loen had revised the laws many times on the issue of workers and economy, trying to improve the treatment of workers, and this news was very valuable to the workers in the dock area.
If they do not understand certain legal knowledge, they will not know how to fight for their rights, which will make them oppressed all the time, and the harder they work, the harder they will live.
Is Professor Wayne an idealist lawyer?
As he got to know Professor Wayne more and more, Hasta felt his sympathy for the poor people from him.
Since the first contact, he felt that Professor Wayne was a little different.
In common sense, many teachers would teach aristocratic children like him perfunctorily, and generally would not expect a nobleman to concentrate on being a lawyer.
After all, the profession of lawyer cannot be compared with the title of nobility.
But Professor Wayne still taught very seriously, and consciously told himself that there were many injustices in the current laws.
It was really bold and fearless to tell a nobleman that there was a problem with the law that protected the nobles.
As they walked and talked, they came to the area where the workers in the dock area lived. Two administrators of the poorhouse were responsible for notifying nearby residents who were free to come here for free classes.
Hasta and Lecturer Foren moved two tables and more than a dozen benches.
Professor Wayne found a blank wooden board and a piece of burnt charcoal.
After about 20 minutes, people came over curiously, wanting to see what these outsiders were going to do here.
When more than 20 residents came to watch, Professor Wayne began his small class on popularizing legal knowledge.